Why we should avoid completely the clones discussions...

[Jack Norton]

http://www.winterwolves.net/blog/2006/01/why-all-those-clones-discussion-are.html

hope that you'll agree with me at least this time (talking in particular about Savant). I would really like to see someone saying "no your theory is wrong" and demonstrate it to me :D

[Savant]

I think you're wrong for one simple reason: all casual games don't have to be about matching 3 colors. Sure, maybe we've exhausted all ideas in that realm but why can't somebody come up with some other mechanic? It can't be that difficult. There had to be something before match 3, and there has to be something after it.

[Anthony Flack]

Even within the context of matching three colours, there are masses of unexplored possibilities. If you're talking about the entire space of "simple games", with several core elements interacting around a simple set of rules to produce an entertaining result, then the possibilities are virtually endless. The real problem is that it might take a lot of messing around before you find a really good one, and if you do someone else will immediately take it off you anyway.

It's actually a bit worrying that you're thinking like this - have things really become so stagnant that it seems like all the ideas have been taken already? But to say there's been nothing new since Tetris... ah, you're being far too harsh.

[Jack Norton]

Ok well probably was a bit harsh indeed :p

But I mean you can't pick a single new game out that doesn't have SIMILAR gameplay mechanics with other ones. Got a msg in my blog about originality of Wik: well I remembed Bionic Commando quite well ;)

That doesn't mean that's bad, but simply that's unavoidable. When I see someone posting a new game and all people suddenly say "ah but this idea was already present in game XXX"... in a way like "you're a thief" well, I must admit I don't understand at all.

If I'll ever make a casual game I'll list all the games that inspired me directly in the game PR :D

[princec]

Shooters can be completely casual. One of the first ever explored mechanics of games was shooting - a basic human skill which relies on our abilities to plot the path of a projectile and predict the impact with a target. It's a fundamental. Probably why I like them so much.

Breakout is just a variation on the same basic skill - it's projectile plotting, except that it relies on two secondary skills which are predict a deflection angle and catch the projectile on its return flight. Again, eminently casual, because of its utterly basic human function, however, interestingly not nearly as popular with all ages and sexes because of its requirement to use a secondary skill.

Pacman is another entirely different but completely basic human skill, which is the ability to navigate a path to avoid predators. Genius. Explored very little these days.

The pattern matching games, whether it be match 3, 4, colours, shapes, etc. etc. all rely one one single fundamental skill which is entirely unused in the other genres there.

Physics sims can be popular because they rely on simulating very basic forces which we all learn to master at an extremely young age. The basic physics game is about thrust, inertia, momentum, and often gravity as well. Lunar Lander was the first of its nature.

Memory games are fun for the sort of people that enjoy memory games but not many people actually enjoy them for some reason. Usually memory is used as a secondary skill to twist a basic concept (see Ikaruga) at which point it's not at all casual any more.

Word games are fun for people who grok words and letters. I'm a very literate individual and I've got a far greater vocabulary than nearly all of my peers but that doesn't mean I like word games. It's a brain formation you have to just "have". But if you've got it, it's so second nature, it's casual. For me it's complex and difficult.

(Can anybody name any other fundamentals that I've missed? I know there are a few)

A few devs try to do with pattern matching or shooters what breakout did - add a secondary skill to create a twist - and this seems to be where it ceases to be casual and becomes more specialised to individuals' ability. I am not very good at breakout; I'd never buy a breakout game. I just don't gel with it. Shooting I love. Mazes I love. Pattern matching I hate.

"Snake" is a particularly complex game requiring dynamic maze navigation - the route to the goal actually changes from moment to moment and you need to be able to predict how that route changes. Not at all casual. Very hard skill to master. Devs frequently surprised when they don't sell very well.

Asteroids mixes physics with a shooter as a secondary skill - and surprise surprise, it's very difficult, and not very popular. Not casual.

Ikaruga mixes pattern matching (black & white) with shooting and memory and this makes it basically immensely difficult for ordinary people. About as casual as a divorce solicitor at a funeral.

Where's my rant taking me...

If you look at games and try and figure out what the very, very, very basic tenet of its gameplay is, you'll find that the majority of casual games have one, ultra-simple basic human instinct buried in them at their heart. Not two. Just one. It's therefore extremely easy to say that game X is a clone of game Y because it's basically the same idea with a few of the parameters juggled and a different skin. But the fact is that juggling the parameters is what 99.999% of all games ever written do, and that's what we like. We like to use our basic skills but in novel settings and tweaked ways. (Some people graduate to using secondary skills and these people are what you call "gamers" - that's me. Some people start using tertiary skills and they're "hardcore", or they hone their skills to perfection.)

Now because we like to use these basic skills so much, but we get tired of the same graphics/novelties/systems, we like to see new games that are basically the same as old games, but with new skins and so on. So who can blame developers for wanting to write them? Who can blame people for wanting to play them?

You Americans would never have had baseball if we'd decided that cricket was the be-all-and-end-all of bat, ball and fielding games. American football would never have existed if you hadn't been such pansies you couldn't play rugby. Er, no, I mean, if you hadn't decided that you could have different rules for a basically similar game.

Etc.

Cas :)

[Teq]

most great innovations are simply variations on other concepts, some real, some virtual :) A good example of a real life clone, cyclonic bagless vacuum cleaners, it does the same job, so its a clone of other vacuum cleaning devices, it just varies the concept slightly, not enough for it to be recongised as a new genre, but enough to be a subset of that genre...

...also coffee + me was a mistake :(

[Anthony Flack]

Got a msg in my blog about originality of Wik: well I remembed Bionic Commando quite well

That doesn't mean that's bad, but simply that's unavoidable. When I see someone posting a new game and all people suddenly say "ah but this idea was already present in game XXX"... in a way like "you're a thief" well, I must admit I don't understand at all.


Yes, but Wik really isn't that much like Bionic Commando, although they're both built around a grappling hook sort of thing. Although this discussion seems to come up every week since the dawn of time, that's not what people mean by game cloning, and I don't think anyone would accuse Wik of being a Bionic Commando rip-off.

[Teq]

*sighs* Bionic Commando, loved that game!

[Raptisoft]

Clones don't bother me, parasites do.

Some people see a game mechanic, get enthusiastic about it, think of things that the original developer left out, or come up with an out-of-the-box idea on how to apply the mechanic, and they make a clone. Think Puzzloop->Zuma->Luxor or Bejewelled->Big Kahuna Reef, or Qix->Waterbugs. A clone basically is an evolution, or at least husbandry. Three generations of clones spawns a new game.

Now a parasite is, someone sees a game that's doing well, and makes the same damn thing, only stuffs some canned theme on top of it. Good examples of this are Luxor->Atlantis or Bejewelled->Excavation, or the one I won't mention for fear that people will think I'm an obsessed maniac sharpening an axe in my spare time (I am). Three generations of parasites is still the same damned game, except the pioneer has to sit around carefully coordinating DDoS attacks-- er, I mean, stewing.

[luggage]

I don't see the difference between a clone and a parasite. A couple of new power ups means nothing in the big scheme of things. But then again I'm not too bothered about clones\parasites in general. Each to their own.

[Andy]

Bejewelled->Big Kahuna Reef

Please pardon me. I don't like to be annoying but...
Bejewelled->Jewel Quest->Big Kahuna Reef

And now go compare two last games. ;)
I think the difference is pretty close to the difference between Fairies and Chuzzle. No?

[Jack Norton]

Well Raptisoft, as you can see already from those 2 post, what for you is crystal clear, for someone else is not.

In any case, even if the games that can't be named were "parasites", what prevents you from making another, better one? I think that now clearly this is the way is going the casual market industry, correct me if I'm wrong.

p.s. I wouldn't invite you for dinner... unless I hide all the knives from my house :D

[Andy]

I wouldn't invite you for dinner... unless I hide all the knives from my house :D

Oh. I would decide this as a honor to invite John-Raptisoft for a dinner and discuss the stuff with him. ;) Don't be so harsh Jack. You haven't got the direct clone for any of your original games yet. When you will get one we'll see what would be your opinion.

I always vote for original designs. And you know what? - the plain clones even if they maybe don't kill the industry in general but they obviously kill the wish to hunt for new fresh game designs.

[Savant]

Rapisoft has a very clear visual on what makes a clone and what makes an extension or add-on game. And I agree with him, whole heartedly. "Parasite" is a great term and really gets at the heart of the matter.

[Grey Alien]

another game mechanic is "spacial awareness" or kind of platform game jumping and dodging of moving things?

What about beat'em'ups = basic violent tendancies of young males (and some other people!)

btw Ikaruga is VERY HARD, got to level 4. If you stop playing it for a while you have to relearn stuff plus it relies on expert reflexives.

I bought Wik and I bought Bionic Commando on the C64. I like both but preffered Bionic Commando; but I'm like 20 years older now so who knows.

[Jack Norton]

Don't be so harsh Jack. You haven't got the direct clone for any of your original games yet. When you will get one we'll see what would be your opinion.
Ok now I'll show you again that you're completely wrong :D
I got a clone of UBM just 3 months after I said here that was doing well. I don't think the guy actually reads the forum, I suppose is just a coincidence. The game is even called Ultimate Boxing Manager (UBM), like if Emmanuel called Fairies "Chizzles" :D
Don't be fooled by the gfx that are quite crap, I think the game is not so bad (has more feature than mine for sure, but I didn't play it a lot). For my kind of games gfx doesn't matter a lot.

See? So what? I should behave like a teenager and say that I'm going to bring my BattleAxe on the head of that PARASITE!?

Same thing happened to Gabriel with Diner Dash, but he just said he was disappointed (which is normal). James C. even made suggestion for their BKR clone "Alladin"! There's no need to start a holy crusade and attack "the enemy" at every post. I find it useless and also can only damage your reputation.

So please, stop crying and keep making better games and you won't have anything to fear against those little insects known as parasites! :cool:

[Andy]

First day after we will publish the first game with Alexey I'll send the notation to you Jack. And we will count together how quickly it would be cloned.

And you know what? I'm not going to behave as a teen. So I'll just catch and kill everybody who will do that. Personally. :D

Guys! You were warned... ;)

REM: What a shit with UBM! Really?! :mad: What a f...!
REM1: James himself is clonning so why not to help another ones? :)

[papillon]

Can you get someone to clone my game? Please? I WANNA PLAY THE CLONE! :)

[Jack Norton]

Told you, I'm making a princess maker 2 clone ! will take quite some time though, artist didn't even started to draw :D
Will have 3 classes: human, elf and ... vampire (nice idea eh?). Probably finished next year... this is World Cup year so USM2 must be ready!

p.s. in my spare time I'm working also on Universal Chuzzle Manager

[papillon]

What does one train/manage a Chuzzle to do?

Clearly, we need a Chuzzle Olympics. Guide fluffballs through a series of sports minigames!

[Jack Norton]

Heh mine was a joke obviously but now that I think about it is not even a bad idea! :D

[lakibuk]

What does one train/manage a Chuzzle to do?To get kicked in the head, as depicted here:
http://exotica.fix.no/gallery/games/images/g/GrandMonsterSlam.jpg

[Grey Alien]

I *knew* chuzzles looked familiar. Mind you they are "clones" of tribbles aren't they?

[Chris Evans]

Please pardon me. I don't like to be annoying but...
Bejewelled->Jewel Quest->Big Kahuna Reef

And now go compare two last games. ;)
I think the difference is pretty close to the difference between Fairies and Chuzzle. No?

BKR added some new elements, but it still was heavily influenced by Jewel Quest. Also it was released while Jewel Quest was still selling very well. So by your definition (John), why isn't BKR a parasite but Fairies is? BKR obviously added a few more things over Jewel Quest, but both games were made in a very short time while their predecessors were still popular.

Personally I agree with Cas (great post btw). Most popular casual games can be singled down to one basic game mechanic. It's hard to add something new without breaking that game mechanic. So it's very easy to have a lot of games that look and feel similar to each other (ie. Clones).

I think for better or for worse, if you're going to make casual games you just have to be prepared for your games to be copied if they perform well on the major portals. Even with high production values, it's very easy for someone to come along and quickly mimic the game mechanics. As they say, the fleas come with the dog.

If getting copied/cloned boils your blood, then make more complex games. Simple as that. How many Hamsterball clones do you see out there? Make a game that can't be parasited (new word!) within a couple of months. Otherwise just accept the current conditions of the casual market (after all you've probably made more money with Chuzzle than most of us have made in the past couple years with our Indie income). You don't see James complaining about all the BKR rip-offs.

[Raptisoft]

Now I've taken my second axe out of the closet.

[cliffski]

surely the only people qualified to talk about the clone debate fairly are those who have done fairly original games. If you havent finished a game, or ahve only made a blatant clone of another game, then you have NO IDEA how much work is involved in original game design.
All this waffle about 'yeah but all games are influenced etc.' is nonsense. Harry potter has wizards in, just like lord of The rings, but it's not a clone. If you write a book about a boy wizard called billy bumper with a scar on his cheek, that IS a clone, and JK Rowling will rightfully sue your ass.

[papillon]

Well, Dennis McKiernan started out writing a *total* LotR clone - down to the abandoned dwarven mine with a magically operated door guarded by a bad thing in the water on one end and a bridge over a bottomless pit where a horrible demon had to be fought on the other - and was not sued and went on to develop that universe to be less of an embarassment... :)

Of course, if we bring up books then we start getting into the discussion of FANFICTION which really makes a mess out of things. :)

[Anthony Flack]

surely the only people qualified to talk about the clone debate fairly are those who have done fairly original games. If you havent finished a game, or ahve only made a blatant clone of another game, then you have NO IDEA how much work is involved in original game design.

Ah, the voice of experience. I've said it before - the real work in making a game is not the finished product, it's the 95% of the work you did which ended up being changed or thrown away in the process.

Of course we can always make complex or content-intensive games, and that's what I tend to do anyway, so there is no fear of cloning there. But I still admire a good, simple game. If one of us here came up with the "next Tetris", how well do you think you'd be able to capitalise on that? Sure, if someone else duplicates your game, you can always "go and make a better one". Except that's a lot of work, and you might not be able to improve it any more. And if you do, they'll just take it again won't they?

[soniCron]

I'm curious why I don't see this level of cloning in the world of board and card games. That's not to say clones don't exist at all, but it is certainly not as pervasive. Is this true, or did I just miss them? If cloning isn't a problem in this sector, why? Is there legal precedence? Or, perhaps it's just honor?

[papillon]

Card games don't clone?

... the entire CCG market isn't just as much a clone as most of the examples we usually give here?

(Which brings us right back around to the 'Is it cloning or is it an entry in the genre?' question.)

Magic The Gathering DID receive some sort of patent, and demands licensing fees off everybody else. Whether they get them or not and more legal details than that, I don't know.

[soniCron]

Nice call about the CCG's. However, I was talking about the kind of stuff that populates sites like BoardGameGeek (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/). (Yes, I see there's an entry for MTG there. No, that's not what I meant by "card games." I'm thinking Uno. ;))

[StGabriel]

I'm thinking Uno.

The Crazy-8's clone you mean?

Seriously though, I do think that there are a LOT of possible game mechanics. Unfortunately most of them are crap. I know I've got a list of many, many ideas backlogged that I want to try out. Look at Lumines and Meteos, two very innovative games (even if Meteos is slightly Match-3) to come out recently by one developer committed to new ideas. In the end it is easier to take something that is known and tweak it a little. And probably more profitable. That is the number one reason why there are lots of clones. Even in the hardcore game market this is the basic operating procedure for large publishers.

[tentons]

Cloning isn't "video games only." How many movies are copies of other movies? Just think of zombie-virus movies alone! How many bands get popular and then a slew of similar sounding groups suddenly appear? It's just mass market reality, I guess. People will buy the same thing repackaged over and over for some reason.

[stupidlikeafox]

i dont understand it myself. the lack of thought that goes into making a clone. i myself am getting into making games and the first thing i want to do is make "new" ones. it takes a while, and is more challenging - but who's going to be impressed by me making the 1,000,000th breakout clone? not me. thats for sure.

[Nexic]

i dont understand it myself. the lack of thought that goes into making a clone. i myself am getting into making games and the first thing i want to do is make "new" ones. it takes a while, and is more challenging - but who's going to be impressed by me making the 1,000,000th breakout clone? not me. thats for sure.

Well people who make clones generally want to make money, and making a 'new' game will in almost all cases yield the developer less money than a clone. I think everyone comes into this biz wanting to make some really nice original games, but most of those peope then become cloners after they realise that their original games don't bring home the bacon. I'm not saying it's good to clone though...